Should penalties be reviewable? (1 Viewer)

[Wilbur Wood]

The NFL should change the replay rules as follows.

#1 There is a "30 second" shot clock for reviews. The clock expires the ruling on the field sticks, no exceptions.

#2 In light of #1 there is a referee upstairs in the booth doing nothing but looking at replays. No more on field zebras walking 100 yards to the TV monitor and spending 2 minutes once he gets there.

#3 When announcing the result we don't need a 4 minute sermon. Explanations should be no more than 10 seconds long.

The blatant mistakes can all be seen readily from a look from 2 angles. If a play needs to be dissected with Freeze Frame McGruder-esque shots than it was a darn close play that should be left to the guys on the field.

 

[identikit]

The problem I would have with reviewing penalties is to be fair you would have to allow for challenges for noncalls of penalties that were missed as well. I'm pretty sure you could find a penalty on every play if you looked hard enough. SO teams would save up their challenges and throw the bean bag on game changing plays and demand a penalty to wipe out big plays.

If a team wants to "save challenges" for a game changing play, then what's wrong with that? If it's truly a game changing play because of a missed penalty, then what's the problem? I'd prefer it be called on that than some of the current nonsense anyway. And yes, it should absolutely be able to be used on non-calls. Those are some of the biggest ones (like last night's CLEAR helmet to helmet hit on the WR). Tacking on 15 yds to the end of the pass play would have made the Giant's drive that much easier and given them far more options. Boss was knocked senseless and somehow held the ball, but add another 15 yards to his spectacular catch and it potentially changes the outcome of the game. And there have been LOTS of penalties for helmet to helmet hits so far this year that have either been obviously incorrectly flagged or completely missed. If the NFL is able to go back and review the film and then levy a fine after the fact, then why can't the ref do the same thing in 90 seconds and award the 15 yards that were deserved? It also would make a coach think twice about a silly challenge that a player went down at the 2 yard line than the 1 yard line as we sometimes see.

My point was that teams will challenge every play that matters and say there was holding . . . or bumping . . . or a face mask . . . or a late hit . . . or a guy twitched at the sanp . . . or whatever just to cancel out an 80 yard TD. Pretty much any kick return could be challenged on a witch hunt looking for a penalty.Then there would be a big debate over what a penalty is or isn't. No thanks, I'd rather just let them keep it the same rather than have every big play come back.

My sentiments as well.

 

[massraider]

There are already some penalties that are reviewable, such as touching of a forward pass by an inelligible receiver.But the basic principle that the NFL has stood by in the review system is that only OBJECTIVE matters may be reviewed - such as whether someone crossed a line or his knee touched the ground. Subjective matters, such as pass interference or roughing - are NOT reviewable.The reason for this is that things look very different at full speed. The subjective plays have to be called at full-speed...

Helmet to helmet is pretty objective. No less objective than trying to determine if a knee is down before a ball is out. Likewise with pass interference.

PI is very subjective on a lot of plays, that's why people get so bent out of shape about the calls.

 

[gianmarco]

There are already some penalties that are reviewable, such as touching of a forward pass by an inelligible receiver.But the basic principle that the NFL has stood by in the review system is that only OBJECTIVE matters may be reviewed - such as whether someone crossed a line or his knee touched the ground. Subjective matters, such as pass interference or roughing - are NOT reviewable.The reason for this is that things look very different at full speed. The subjective plays have to be called at full-speed...

Helmet to helmet is pretty objective. No less objective than trying to determine if a knee is down before a ball is out. Likewise with pass interference.

PI is very subjective on a lot of plays, that's why people get so bent out of shape about the calls.

Of course it is. Again, you're the 2nd person to take that portion out of context. I said PI is "no less objective than trying to determine if a knee is down before a ball is out". There have been plenty of PI calls that on replay show no contact whatsoever. There are some that could go either way. Some are clear cut. Some are iffy. Similar to lots of fumble or completion/incompletion rulings.

 

[massraider]

Of course it is. Again, you're the 2nd person to take that portion out of context. I said PI is "no less objective than trying to determine if a knee is down before a ball is out".

This is simply not true.It's really no arguable, you believe what you believe, and that's cool, but it is a lot more common for a PI call to go either way than a ball out of bounds or knee down. And on plays when it isn't called, there's a good chance it was committed, according to the letter of the law, somewhere on the field.

If you were to do this, you would get more flags. Refs would just cover themselves, and throw flags twice as much. Say bye-bye to kickoff returns, because there was an illegal block somewhere.